Snow Day
A snow day makes for a great chance to catch up on some things, especially when the Internet is down as well. Luckily we still have electricity, so the house remains cozy warm under all that snow. I know that many people in the area weren’t so fortunate – power is out all over mid-Missouri right now. Not really much I can do about that, of course, but I have been and will continue to pray for those without electricity, that you stay warm and that the power company gets it fixed soon.
So what happens around here when the Internet fails? Of course lack of connectivity dramatically impedes the work that normally keeps me busy, as much of that directly depends upon connecting with outside servers. So some more manual, physical tasks arise. Mabel and Rudy continue to shed through the winter, so it came time to sweep up the excess fur floating around the floor. Not quite enough to make another dog this time, but they did produce at least a bunny-sized fur pile. The snow drifts against my back door prevented me from taking the collection to the outdoor trash can as usual, though, so I had to stuff it into a plastic Wal-Mart sack and toss it into the kitchen dustbin. Good enough for a snow day, right?
Patti made us a wonderful egg and sausage scramble for breakfast, complete with peppers, mushrooms, olives, and various spices and flavors. I constantly marvel at how well we mesh in life – in particular, we have exceptionally similar taste in food, and we both love to cook (and to eat!), so we commonly have better meals at home than we could ever get out at a restaurant.
I had a chance to update our budget for February and March, though I couldn’t access the bank statement since everything arrives electronically now. Still, I likely have everything entered correctly already anyway, so even without the verification from the bank I suspect we have fairly reliable numbers there. My micro-management of the budget might annoy Patti on occasion, but it does allow me to work even if a particular piece of data is missing at the moment. Don’t be fooled, though: As soon as I have another free moment I intend to download the bank’s version of things and ensure that they haven’t made any mistakes!
I particularly enjoy having the chance to do some physical labor during the day. Most of my work requires sitting and staring, with only my fingers getting any exercise bouncing over the old IBM keyboard. Today, though, I got to go shovel the snow from the driveway and clean off the cars! Seems like a regular thing lately, third time since the big storm on Thursday. We only got about three or four inches this time, but the warmer temperatures made for much more compact, wet, heavy snow. In fact, along the gutter of the street the water outweighed the snow. I can’t tell if I’ve built up more stamina or if I just have a more manageable pace now, but I felt pretty good today after moving all that slush. The last two times I shoveled I walked away with some rather unpleasant lower back pain; today the heavy snow did not seem to cause any malady at all. Plus, I quite fortunately found myself in the middle of shoveling as a large flock of white geese flew by, honking their way north in graceful formation.
After moving the snow from the driveway to the yard I proceeded to sit in front of my computer as usual. I considered reading my book about the history of Marvel comics, or maybe preparing for my Bible Survey class, or picking up any one of the dozen or so books I’ve either started or considered recently, but instead I chose to finish organizing the digital photos on my hard drive. Over the years Patti and I have had different ways of keeping track of the thousands of pictures we take (ain’t digital photography grand?), so it seemed good to me to try eliminating some of the duplicates, and placing the rest into a filing system we could both understand. Hopefully Patti finds my system usable; I know I tend to come up with oddball plans that work for me, but perhaps few others would find the organization even meaningful.
In the midst of my compulsively perfectionist photo categorization, we decided to cook up some cheese tortellini in a home made red sauce with spicy pork sausage, along with a small tray of tortilla chips with cheese melted over them and a small bowl of salsa. Very nice lunch, as usual when both of us are home.
After lunch, Patti reminded me that I had resolved to write something every day. I had come up with a couple topics, but none struck me as just what I felt like diving in to on this relaxed and unfocused snow day. Hence, I present you with this simple description of my day. It’s been a good day, a comfortable day. with no conflict or controversy, just a bit of light physical labor and some cataloguing of a type that I enjoy. I can’t say that I would want every day to be so quiet, but I do certainly enjoy the break now and again.
Vulnerability and Creativity
TED Talks are cool.
I was at a retreat this weekend where I watched a TED talk by Brené Brown on the power of vulnerability. In the middle of the talk she mentioned in passing that vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity. This immediately sent me down a side road off the intended topic.
I’ve not created a whole lot in recent days years. Looking back over my life, I can see a few brief periods of prolific creative output nestled within vast expanses of playing along. Scanning my history through this new lens of vulnerability held up by Dr. Brown, I believe I can discern a complementary pattern in effect. It seems that in the obvious cases that I’ve considered I had much lower fear of vulnerability during the times of my greatest creative output. Sometimes this was due to lack of concern for what others thought of me, sometimes because I believed myself to be so isolated that no one would notice, and at other points I carried a much greater sense of worthiness – the idea that what I created deserved to be seen despite its clear and obvious flaws and shortcomings.
Much more often, though, I have had some sense that I am “not enough.” I’m not important enough, or good enough, or brave enough; I lack the character or wisdom or skill or talent or any number of other lacks and failings. These things rarely restrain my pompous and arrogant character, and they don’t often mute my larger-than-life style, but it seems that they do impede artistic creation.
Brené Brown, in the TED talk I mentioned, spoke of excruciating vulnerability as a primary component of shame and the “not enough” feeling. On the other hand, people who experience less shame, people who have strong feelings of love and belonging, who experience connectedness, these people differ from the other group in that they believe they are worthy of love and belonging. It is in the belief of worthiness that they gain their advantage. As she says, “They were willing to let go of who they thought they should be, in order to be who they were.” This, it seems, is an absolute requirement for true connection. “In order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen. Really seen.”
(Sidebar: Please note that I said “less shame,” not “no shame.” Feeling worthy, being wholehearted, differs greatly from being shameless.)
Many people, I think, would probably not balk at using the word “wholehearted” as a proper descriptive of me. However, reflection as a result of this retreat has shown me that I’ve designed a sandbox for myself in which it’s entirely safe to be wholehearted with only minimal vulnerability. I’ve sterilized and polished my story of a broken life, complete with even my day-to-day failings on display, without much fear of disapproval or shame. I can describe my selfish thoughts and actions to nearly any audience; that manner of vulnerability brings no excruciating pain.
Artistic expression, on the other hand, particularly verbal artistic expression, including prose, poetry, and song lyrics, breaks out of the sandbox, exposing a window to my soul that I have not been able to sanitize. I can generally feel completely safe while making a fool of myself on stage playing music written by others, but my fear of shame, so it seems, bears at least partial responsibility for squelching my willingness to contribute my own heart to the creative process.
One of my current plans for generating income involves writing. Even before going to this retreat and seeing that video I had made a decision to return to a regular program of writing with the ultimate goal of being able to sell this skill / talent of mine. In watching this video, I realize that one of my hurdles in this process will be getting beyond the “not enough” feelings, exposing my vulnerabilities, and creatively inventing verbal expression with my whole heart.
Am I truly worthy of acceptance as a writer? Well, I guess that depends upon who judges worthiness. I do know, though, that only by actually writing will I ever have any chance to find out who accepts it and who does not. My recent return to Twitter has already yielded a gem from Donald Miller, a person I admire and respect, and who invites and encourages others to tell their stories and live great and expressive lives. He tweets:
Great characters make decisions and move. Life is 10% choosing and 90% movement.
Today I have chosen, and today I begin to move. I intend to create wholeheartedly. I may expose myself in ways I did not expect, but I am willing to be vulnerable with my life. I hope to create things inspiring and entertaining, but at the very minimum I intend simply to create.
Invasive Exotic Plants Threaten Missouri
Following is a post written by my father, Jack Harris, of St. Louis. While we were worrying about honeysuckle and winter creeper, he’s noticed another incredibly aggressive invader: ranunculus ficaria or “lesser celandine”.
For more information and photos about this subject, visit my friend Eric’s blog:
Greetings,
Presently there is an opportunity to observe an example of the power of an invasive exotic plant species to TOTALLY dominate the physical space peculiar to its growth habit.
The bottomland forest floor along Gravois Creek in Clydesdale Park, South St. Louis County as it appeared on 14 March 2012. The green is ca 80 – 95% Ranunculus ficaria (lesser celandine) leaves. This plant is native to Eurasia.
Coverage is now nearly coterminous with the bottomland habitat boundary in large areas. Any native species of bottomland plants that would normally be trying to grow at this time have been crowded out by the leaf canopy (3 – 4 inches). There is even less emerging garlic mustard visible now than we have seen in the past..
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This image is of the same general area taken on 2 April 2010. In the next few days the cover of lovely golden yellow flowers will be like this over the entire bottomland habitat. A few flowers are already in bloom. Ranunculus ficaria has rapidly spread from spotty coverage just a few years ago to the recent condition with few open areas left.
Stop by for a brief visit in the next day or so and see a blanket of yellow!
Bottomland Trail (Park Map >>
<< http://www.stlouisco.com/Portals/8/docs/Document%20Library/parks/PDFs/trailmaps/trail-Clydesdale.pdf >> )
The trail is blacktop hardened.
NOTE: There is a public parking lot at the far upper left corner of the Park map – that is not illustrated. This lot is only about 50 yards from the east end of the Bottomland Trail.
Access to this lot is via the subdivision/residential streets Tiffany Village Parkway and then Tiffany Village Court.
All visible at >> < http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&rlz=&q=green+park+mo&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl >
Enjoy!
Writing
A friend recently asked me to critique a paper written for a class. In the process, and over the following hours, a few ideas came to mind that I thought might be of use to aspiring writers. Keep in mind, these are only my opinions; I’ve had no real training in journalism or any such thing. Still, they’ve helped me along the way to improve my writing abilities. I wanted to pass them on in the hopes that you might make some use of them as well.
- Improve your vocabulary. Get a large dictionary (they’re very cheap at second-hand stores). Use it to get on a word-a-day plan: Learn a new word every day (preferably verbs, adjectives, and adverbs), and use it in daily speech and/or writing as often as possible. Get a thesaurus and use it whenever you write. Take the time to pick just the right word for a particular concept rather than just going with the first one that comes to mind.
- Read a lot. Think about what you read, not just what the story means, but how the author put it together. Pick out your favorite authors, and find out what in particular you like about their writing. Do the same with your least favorite writers: Find out what about their style bothers you. When a certain phrase or sentence or paragraph or chapter or book strikes you in a meaningful way, take a moment to understand how that piece is constructed. When you come across an unfamiliar word, look it up (see point #1).
- Write a lot. Whatever goal you set in life, you need practice in order to grow towards it, so write at every opportunity you can find. Start a journal that only you will read. Start a blog that (hopefully) lots of people will read. Write letters to the editor and articles for the church bulletin or school paper. You can try out new ideas and be more open in a private journal, which helps to develop your flow of thoughts. You’ll want to be more mindful of style and form in public forums like blogs and published work, encouraging you to work on your technique. Also, incorporate point #2 here by mimicking the style of your favorite authors, trying to capture the feel of their best works. Do this in ways that can stretch your abilities: Write a technical paper in the style of a dramatic novel; write a short story in the style of a love letter; write a letter to the editor in the style of a product advertisement. Learn why different constructs work better in different settings.
- Read aloud what you’ve written. Read it to your dog or a patient friend if one is available. This has more to do with you reading it than someone else hearing it, so don’t let choosing a perfect audience keep you from actually doing this. It can help you identify discrepancies of number, tense, and person, as well as uncovering awkward constructs. How do the sentences flow off of your tongue? Does each paragraph stand well on its own? Do the ideas all fit within the work as a whole?
- Write dynamically. You can turn the most boring topic into a compelling read just by the style you apply to the work. Conversely, you can drain all the life out of a very exciting story with a dull presentation. No matter what you’re writing, put your fire into the text. Use active verbs whenever possible, avoiding ‘to be’ like the plague. Scatter colorful adjectives and adverbs liberally. Choose your words carefully, not just to convey the subject, but to recreate the feeling. Cut out any superfluous fluff so you can focus more energy on the primary topic. Write drafts and rewrite them. Move paragraphs around for maximum effect. (Modern word processors make these last two tasks trivial.) Put forth the effort to draw the reader’s attention to the point you want to make, and make that point well.
- Get feedback from trusted advisors. This may seem like the hardest part of the process, because it will mean learning to take hard criticism gracefully, but it could also be the bit that pays off the most. Find a few people whom you can trust, people who have read much and hopefully have even written, and occasionally ask them to read over your work. Not necessarily everything you write, but once in a while get feedback on a piece, especially when you’re trying something new, or you’ve produced something that you particularly like. Take their comments with a grain of salt, knowing that their opinion has value, but don’t automatically assume that their ideas trump your own. Just let it sink in enough to guide you in future work.
I’m sure there are other points that would be helpful, but these are the few that come to mind off the top of my head. I suspect that most of these ideas would be similar in any creative endeavor, be it music or sculpture or architecture or any number of other fields. I hope you find them helpful, and most of all I hope you keep creating, keep trying, and keep growing.
Irrational & Dogmatic
A good friend of mine recently made a comment:
Kinda getting tired of the whole “Athiests are just as bad as fundamentalists” argument. If person A says “There’s a great bully in the sky who will friccassee you if you gather wood on Saturday,” and person B says “Having never seen any hard evidence of the sky bully, I’m going to say that he doesn’t exist,” then the burden of proof is on person A. Person B is being neither irrational or dogmatic.
I don’t want to call out this person publicly, but if you’re reading this, you’re welcome to identify yourself in the comments!
To this, I replied:
Picking out one of the more difficult passages of Christian scripture, paraphrasing it in the most inflammatory terms you can come up with in the moment, and using that to imply that people who follow Christ are being irrational and dogmatic is, itself, really rather irrational and dogmatic. It’s like saying that you don’t buy the concepts behind the Legendre series of polynomials, and therefore all of mathematics is irrational and dogmatic. In fact, anyone who tries to tell you that 2+2=4 is aggressively trying to push their erroneous world-view on you.
Like mathematics, the ways of God are sometimes hard to understand, but the basic concepts are undeniably clear. Like mathematics, the ways of God are entirely logically consistent, coherent, and sensible. Like mathematics, no single person will ever be able to fully understand all of the things of God, but the average person can have a very good grasp of most of the ideas with very little effort. Like mathematics, it makes very little sense to throw out the entire idea of God’s existence and His Love for us because we haven’t taken the time to come to terms with some of the more confusing or complex aspects of Him.
Numbers 15:32-36 comes in the midst of a long narrative describing God taking extreme measures to show Himself to an oppressed group of people. Each time He rescued them from another dire circumstance they’d refuse to acknowledge His work, and in fact would blatantly disregard His message describing the way to live in peace, joy, and prosperity. God’s dealings with this group are sometimes quite surprising and unexpected, but are by no means impossible to understand if you’re willing to take the time to figure it out. Like mathematics, some of these concepts don’t come easily, but that doesn’t mean they’re not true.
The problem with issues of religion is that they are very rarely resolved by “proof” or “logic.” In a similar way, you’d likely never pick a marriage partner, or even a friend, because that person is the most logical choice. Personal relationships are almost always based on feelings and proximity. For me to give a formal proof of why you should have a relationship with a particular person would have little bearing on whether you like that person or not.
Still, I’m inclined to give at least this small, simple argument for the existence of God: Everything that begins to exist must have a cause – that is, nothing comes into existence without an external cause. Accepted mainstream scientific inquiry and thermodynamics clearly show that the universe began at some finite point in history with the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang, no material thing existed. Without the influence of a supernatural power (whom I call God) which performed a miracle in the creation of the universe, you are left with a choice of illogical statements like “nothing created the universe” or “the universe has no explanation for its existence” or “the universe created itself.”
I’m a very reasonable man. If it were unreasonable to believe that God is who He says He is, I would not be following Him. I’ve tried a lot of different philosophies of life, and the most consistent, coherent, and sensible philosophy I’ve seen is found in the Judeo-Christian Bible. Like I said before, I doubt this issue will be resolved by logic. Still, in light of the clear evidence to the contrary, I’d say that the burden of proof is on the one who insists that there are no miracles.
Black Crow King
Hmm, moved the blog to WordPress today, and noticed that I hadn’t posted anything here in over two years. I guess I got side-tracked by my Bible-In-A-Year project, but still, that’s a long time.
So here’s something for you: a recent video of me singing at Summer Jams:
Enjoy!
B
Gunshots
She was quite drunk that night as we reached our cars. Turning to me, she queried, "Do you want to walk around the block and finish this conversation?" I wavered, then assented, and we turned left down the brick street. What should have been the white traffic lines on the road instead appeared as uneven and crooked lines connecting large unrecognizable symbols, and she began skipping and dancing drunkenly up the icy street in her white high heals. I followed, worried that she might fall. Concerned as well for my own stability, I tried to stay on the dry pavement and determined to make this a short walk around the block, choosing to go right at the first intersection and head quickly back to the car.
Turning the corner I was somewhat surprised to see the three police cars and the people milling about, but it seemed that whatever attracted them had been contained, as no one acted unduly excited. As we passed through the scene I overheard the story of a series of gang-related shootings on the roof of the single-story brick building past which we walked. Apparently one man was shot, then someone else shot the first shooter, and finally another person shot the second shooter. I walked into the parking lot adjoining the building and climbed the rough masonry stairs which led to the top of the building’s wall. Standing on the landing at the top of the stairs the wall rose to chest height, and over the wall I saw the few people remaining on the roof, one being the final shooter. With the high-powered rifle I shot this young man dead. A gang member standing next to me on the stairs took the rifle from me and shot two others as I walked down the steps. When I reached the street I raised my hands and began shouting, "I arrest! I arrest!" as I walked towards an occupied police car. Exiting his vehicle, the officer and several other police converged on me. I was wearing no shirt, and they frisked me, making me lean on the car. Internally I questioned the wisdom of turning myself in, which quickly led me to wonder whether I should have shot that man in the first place, but I decided I was making a statement that it’s better to kill than to deal with a lengthy trial.
This all reminded me of the last time. I had been riding a cross-country train when I overheard a man talking with someone about a murder he had recently committed. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the general topic was quite clear to me. I jumped from my seat, yelling at him, "Kill me! Kill me!" He reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and withdrew a small single-shot pen gun, cocked it, and pressed the barrel against the center of my chest. Taking his hand in both of mine I moved the gun slightly to my left and said to him, "Right in the heart!" He looked at me questioningly, and I repeated, "Right in the heart!" He fired the gun and I heard the report, but I felt nothing. Looking at my chest as he pulled the gun away, I knew that I would see no blood at first, but that the bullet had pierced my heart, and that a deep crimson stain would quickly form on my shirt in the back, and that I’d very soon be dead.
Band Bio
Single rooms
My parents, my brother, and I had just moved into a small single-room building in the city, actually not much more than a wooden shed on short legs that held it about 30 cm off the ground. It was quite cramped for four adults as we were, but no one complained. As we walked down the city street we stopped in at yet another single-room dwelling. I had seen an advertisement for this one on television recently – mostly below ground-level, it seemed to be a converted septic tank, with concrete and rock walls coated in dark-colored paints heavily faded with age. The street-level entry stepped onto a staircase that led down along the wall to the right and into the sparse living area, the only room in the place. We walked in, followed a moment later by another family considering taking residence there. My heart sank when my mom let me know that by way of my brother’s inclination we’d be moving here instead. I felt overwhelmed; we hadn’t even gotten settled in the last place yet. Sensing my despair, my mom explained that Tyler preferred the bed here. At first I had no idea what she was talking about, knowing that my own bed would be nothing more than a board with an old, thin, cotton-filled mat and a thread-bare blanket no matter where we stayed, until she pointed to the twin-sized mattress under a jutting ledge of the wall which I hadn’t yet noticed, on which he’d of course sleep. I reminded my dad of the long list of rules we saw on the way in concerning Scotch whisky, rules I recalled from that TV commercial. They nodded resigned acceptance, and without further argument I began the preparation of putting on my sandals. This proved as difficult as ever, perhaps more so considering the weary state of my spirit. Realizing that my delay might seem rebellious, I renewed my focus and completed my task, then followed them into the party in the next room.
Not seeing them at first, I milled through the crowd, trying to present a reasonable appearance in spite of the dreary gloom hovering over my soul. I passed by a quite attractive woman who seemed to glance quickly away when she noticed me. Moments later she walked by again, shoulder-length light brown hair, 1.75 m tall, slender; and after she passed she queried, "Don’t want to talk to me anymore?"
It seemed I should know her, so I replied, "That’s not it, I’m just tired." Immediately I recognized my over-used excuse and corrected, "I’m sorry. Actually, I’m somewhat bitter about this whole thing. It’s not your fault." We stepped to a table near the railing that separated us from the raised bar and sat down with a small group of people. I noticed that the left side of her waist, from her rib-cage to her hip bone, was rotting, with greyish-white crust clinging lightly to exposed bone, and that she was in a wheel chair, though she seemed unmoved by her condition. I rose and stepped up to the bar area, where I ordered a shot of each type of whisky. Immediately the waiter produced a brown oval tray, 600 cm x 400 cm, covered with several dozen small empty bottles, each a different shape and size, and proceeded to pour one shot from each of his whisky bottles into each of the small bottles on the tray. The small bottles were stout, approximately 2.5 cm in diameter and perhaps 4 – 6 cm tall, with small necks, some of brown or black glass, others white or dark green, and all with faded labels painted or glued onto them. I carried the tray back to the table and offered shots up to the group, then began drinking them. The woman I sat down with drank at least one, but I don’t recall anyone else indulging. I also had a beer which I kept on the table behind me for lack of room on the table we sat around.
Walking outside, the city was grey. Grey walls, grey streets, grey clothes on the people. Buses passed, and a commuter train rolled by a few blocks away. People wore brimmed hats and looked at their feet as they hurried on their way.
South County Sound 
Matthew Henry’s New Year’s Day Prayer
The following is adapted from a prayer written by Matthew Henry on New Year’s Day in the Year of our Lord 1704. I have modified it to flow more like a daily prayer, for as such do I commonly use it. On Friday of last week Bill Hybels entreated all the participants at the Leadership Summit to pray daily for thirty days a prayer of very similar content, which I have so far done. The repetition of the Hybels prayer has prompted me to make note of this prayer of Matt Henry, which for many years now I have seen tacked to the wall next to the desk at which I perform most of my daily work.
The prayer, then, is this: